Carter's Birthday Surprise

I love discovering new things about the boys and their personalities and character traits through behaviors. When I asked Landon what he wanted to do for his birthday with his friends, he gave me this long list of friends and had these grand party plans, including lots of specific details (ahem, like his mother).  Carter, on the other hand, gave me the names of two boys and wanted to go see a movie and have a sleepover. Simple, quiet, and low-key (like his daddy).

One of the boys wasn't able to make it so his birthday fun consisted of one really good friend and Carter was completely happy with that. The original plan was to take them to the movies to see Inside Out and have the boy sleep over.

Then I started thinking...  We got tickets to the Carolina Railhawks soccer game instead! I sent a message to the Railhawks on Twitter asking if they could do anything special for my birthday boy, which resulted in them allowing us to sit on the team bench during warm-ups!!! We didn't tell Carter our plans until we actually pulled in! The funny thing was that he was bummed for a second about not going to see the movie (!!!!!), but after I explained that we would still go see Inside Out soon, he was excited!

He loved watching the guys warm up (FROM THE TEAM BENCH!!!!!) and even got high-fives from some of them, including the goalie!

He had fun watching the game and we won 3-2! And Carter's favorite soccer player, Messi may have been replaced by a new fave...NACHO!!!

His friend slept over and they had some fun the next morning playing cars, doctor, and shooters. #boys

Don't let me forget...I have to get him to the movies soon to see Inside Out!!!

 

Paw Patrol - Landon's 9th & Carter's 6th Joint Party

For the boy's joint birthday party with family, they decided on a Paw Patrol theme (a tv show about dogs). I have noticed that I have been getting more low-key and less complicated with my parties. It's refreshing!

We had a mid-afternoon cookout with hot dogs, hamburgers, all the fixins, baked beans, mac & cheese, and chips. I also had pretzel rods (aka "fetch sticks") and Scooby Snacks graham cookies (aka "dog treats") as snacks. I served the chips and pretzels in (new and clean) dog food bowls and graham cookies in a (new and clean) dog treat container. I picked those up at the $ Tree. I set out to make "toilet water" which is a basic punch recipe (white grape juice, Sprite, Koolaid, and sugar). For toilet water, I was supposed to use blue Koolaid. Lesson learned...just because the Koolaid packet is blue, doesn't mean the actual Koolaid will be blue. So we ended up with red punch and I scrapped the "toilet water" sign (because red toilet water is just gross). I served water and beer too.

I picked up Paw Patrol invitations and napkins at my local party store and basic cups, plasticware, and divided plates at Walmart (sticking to red, blue, yellow, and green to keep with the colors of Paw Patrol). I had a Paw Patrol tablecloth and balloons...again, keeping it simple.

I made the most easiest but cutest cake - a paw print. All it was was one round cake and three cupcakes. All from one box of cake mix and one tub of icing. Easy peasy.

It was a great time getting together with family and celebrating my two sweet boys. Nine and six! Wow.

Sprinkle for Baby Oakley

My sweet nephew, Oakley, must have been overly excited about his baby sprinkle that Aunt Ashley and I were giving him, so he made his surprise entrance into the world 6.5 weeks early - well before the sprinkle. He came home from the hospital just in time to make an appearance at his party!

I reserved the picnic shelter at Meadowmont Park in Chapel Hill, which was just a shelter set in the woods beside a small pond. It was a perfect and quiet setting for our woodland-themed sprinkle.

We served "bundtinis" from Nothing Bundt Cakes in Cary and had iced tea and water (with lemon, mint, and cucumbers) in mason jars for refreshments.

Ashley made the name banner (to hang in the nursery later) and a cute fox corsage among many other awesome decorations. We grabbed pine cones from the woods and put them in mason jars tied with twine for the tables. I'm a sucker for a mason jar. And nature.

And we asked everyone to write a wish for Oakley on paper and roll around a candle. On his future birthdays, he can pull one out and read the message of love. Isn't that special!

It was a beautiful day. And what a glorious occasion to get together; to honor Mr. Oakley and his sweet mama, Beth.

Landon's 9th Birthday (Friend) Party

This year we decided to approach birthday celebrations a little differently than in the past. I told both boys that they could have a low-key party with friends near their birthday. We would obviously do something special on their actual birthday. Then we would have one joint party for both with family (their birthdays are about 5 weeks apart - May 28 and July 12 - so we'd land somewhere in the middle). Our families are in VA so I thought it would make it easier on family to come down once for both boys. And I'm not a big fan of family and friends at the same party, because I feel like family gets ignored.

Landon decided to have an outdoor movie party and sleepover. I went with a movie theme for his party: popcorn, theater candy, tickets, clapboard, etc.

I asked for the boys to be dropped off at 7pm (all 8 of them accepted the party invite!). We started with some outdoor play followed by cupcakes and gifts. The boys played a little more in the backyard waiting on it to get dark enough to begin the movie.

We set up a projector and screen in the backyard (thanks, cousin Matt for your IT assistance). Landon decided to watched Wall-E (hence the Wall-E cupcake toppers). I had sheets out for the boys to grab and sit on. They ate popcorn and candy while they watched the movie. We also pulled out some glow sticks.

After the movie (around 10ish), the boys came inside and piled up side-by-side in the living room floor in sleeping bags. They finally fell asleep around 11 and woke around 6ish!

I sent them outside pretty early to play, then they enjoyed a breakfast of bagels, fruit, and juice (those boys almost ate me out of house and home!). They were picked up by 10am and took home a cute favor that was an awesome idea, but super poor execution. :) We planted small cucumber plants in cups with a "plant sample" tag to mimic the plant in Wall-E. But we waited until the morning of the party to transplant them and they were in shock. I'm pretty sure they all died before the boys could plant them at home. LOL

The boys seemed to have a great time, and we're definitely going to have more backyard movie nights!